Halliday St. Illegal Parking Pad Fiasco Ends, Portion of Street Likely Given Away

OK, so here is what you do if you buy a property to rehab that has no parking. First, you pave over any bit of yard that exists on a Saturday when you won’t get caught. One of two things will happen, you either get left alone and get to keep the parking or “compromise” and get the alderman to give you a portion of the publicly owned right-of-way for you to include with your property.

I first blogged about this in June of last year (post) and a fourth time in August 2007 (post w/links to other posts). Last month, after wearing down the neighboring residents, something finally happened. The pad, illegally placed in the front yard, began to be removed.

Now, this sounds wonderful. As we can see from the image below…

…the pavement is now gone from the front yard after a six month prolonged process. The developer had promised parking to his buyers and rather than face the music for such a commitment the city is going to come along and bail him out — by giving him part of the public street.

This quiet one-way street in the Tower Grove East neighborhood is about to get some angled parking for the condo residents. I personally have no objection to the switch to angled parking or even issuing them permits for their exclusive use of those spaces. My issue is with the city vacating a portion of the street so it can be given over to private residents. Late last year Ald. Conway confirmed with me that he was trying to get Todd Waelterman, Director of Streets, so sign off on the vacation. I have not received a response from Waelterman that this has indeed happened.

In a city public space, the collective street, sidewalk, etc…, should be valued highly. It is these public rights of way that service as connectors to all privately owned land. It is the use and arrangement of these spaces that define a street as part of a walkable community or simply as a suburban arterial road with no redeeming public value. Cities like St. Louis need to treasure our publicly owned land that we have in our streets and alleys.

Crosswalk Leads Directly Into Curb & Light Standard, Missing Ramps

Getting around the city is a challenge for those using mobility devices (wheelchairs, mobility scooters), pushing strollers or pulling luggage. Sure, everywhere you look you do see ramps. So what is the problem, you ask?

Well, ramp placement plays a role in their ultimate usability and sadly placement has been given little thought throughout the city. Of course, it is worse out in the suburbs where sidewalks are a luxury.

Above is looking East across 18th Street at the signalized entry to Union Station (behind me) and across to another parking lot — I like how they managed to center the crosswalk lines with the curb on the other side — perfectly centered between two ramps! Pedestrians headed West from the new multi-modal center (Greyhound & Amtrak services) are directed up a new ramp which takes them out to the above intersection. Those heading South along 18th (toward Ameren/Lafayette Sq) must cross this crosswalk as the viaduct only has sidewalks on the West edge. Those coming and going from Union Station also cross this intersection.

Interesting, the ramp for the corner where I am standing aligns perfectly with the center of the painted stripes yet on the opposite side it runs into a curb and signal post. Brilliant!

When I took the above image a couple of weeks ago the signals here and at the new ramp just a few hundred feet to the South had been placed on yellow flash for 18th and red flash if you were leaving on of the parking lots. For pedestrians, this means no pedestrian signal to indicate when it is OK to attempt to cross the street.

And, as you might expect, the ramps on the other side are a mess of wrong slopes and cross angles. Controlling a wheelchair to keep from having the right ramp spill you out in the street would be a challenge. This situation should not be acceptable given that pedestrians from this new facility are headed this direction.

UPDATE 1/9/08 @ 9am – The new multi-modal center is expected to open in late April.

Stanley Heading to County with Massive Projected Financial Shortfalls

As previously discussed, St. Louis’ top planner Rollin Stanley is leaving his post with the city and heading to Montgomery County, Maryland.  Presumably his position is not one of the ones being frozen due to a looming financial crisis.  From yesterday’s Washington Post:

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) announced a freeze yesterday on hiring in the 9,400-person workforce under his jurisdiction, stepping up efforts to close the county’s record $401 million projected shortfall for fiscal 2009.

Leggett’s chief administrative officer, Timothy Firestine, said the county would make exceptions in hiring for public safety jobs, bus drivers and other essential positions for at least the next five months.

The hiring freeze underscores the gloomy outlook for the county’s finances and comes as Leggett has recommended $23.6 million in midyear trims to social services, bus service and overtime for the police and fire departments. The announcement follows Schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast’s decision to impose a freeze on spending and most hiring. (full story)

Ouch, and I thought we had it bad.   Although the low-density county has nearly three times the population and over eight times as much land area as St. Louis, their financial situation makes St. Louis seem far more fiscally stable than we are.

Still, if Stanley is given the freedom to actually do some good planning in the county (unlike here where he was kept on a short leash) then it will be a good move for him.

Interco Plaza, An Ugly Reminder of Past Mistakes

St. Louis, like many other older industrial cities, has made numerous mistakes in the past decades. One of those is a city park, known as Interco Plaza, located at Tucker and Dr. Martin Luther King. The city’s lists of parks simply indicates it is 0.71 acres and has a single fountain. However, the fountain no longer exists. From the City Journal on May 14, 2002 I see the Board of Public voted to approve “Demolition of the High Wall of Interco Plaza Fountain, Tucker Street & Dr. Martin Luther King.”

When proposed I’m sure the artist rendering showed many people conversing around the now-removed fountain. Politicos probably wax poetically about how this new investment in the city was going to do wonders for the area as nothing else had. It may have worked, for a while. Today it stands (barely) as a relic of the brutalist concrete movement.
Although I had been past it hundreds of times I had never stopped and taken a closer look. On a hot day this past August, I did stop and take in the beauty of all the broken up concrete:

So who is this Interco Incorporated? Their long standing name was the International Shoe Company and currently they are known as Furniture Brands. Furniture Brands is based in Clayton, in the Interco Tower which opened in 1985. Click here for a company history.

Interco Plaza is located at the SE corner of Tucker and Dr. Martin Luther King — between the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to the North, the St. Louis Public Schools HQ to the East and St. Patrick Center to the South. The balance of the area is parking. Hadley Street to the East was cut off to through traffic and Dr. King Drive between Hadley and 10th were also removed. Just as well, the Convention Center cuts off through access on Dr. King.

Getting in closer we see the Plaza before the removal of the fountain and the high wall near it. The green spaces (left & bottom) shown above are holes to the tunnel below. The balance of the green, basically the NE corner, are at grade. Still doing research but I guess that a building and basement were razed at this site and the plaza was the replacement.

A few images:

This park is such a horrible space, even the homeless will not use it! Well, at least not the top. Homeless do use the space underneath and the tunnel under Tucker for shelter. A Post-Dispatch article from October indicated the city estimates the cost to replace Tucker (either by filling in the tunnel or building a new tunnel) will cost $30 million, they are seeking federal assistance. Unclear to me is the future of Interco Plaza.

It really needs to go away.

Does Furniture Brands still own the land under the air rights? Can we re-open the closed streets in the area? What about building an SRO (Single Room Occupancy) on a portion of the land? What will become of those living underneath?
I just watched a documentary, about the homeless in an abandoned Amtrak tunnel, filmed in the late 1990s in NYC. The film, Dark Days, was very moving. The homeless themselves were the film crew. This documentary, the first for Marc Singer, received several awards, including a couple at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000.

Here is a brief intro:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpXHCRYXP7s[/youtube]

Like the rest of our city, we have many forgotten areas between areas being revitalized. We need to learn what we can from past mistakes such as brutal concrete plazas and resolve to reconnect and heal the entire city.

Wanted; Director of St. Louis’ Very-Limited Planning Agency

Largely ineffective at changing the local scene since arriving in 2001, St. Louis’ planning director Rollin Stanley is heading to greener pastures, literally: suburban D.C. The news was announced on the Mayor’s campaign website Monday.

So, to help out the city I thought I’d write a help wanted ad for Stanley’s replacement. Here is what I’ve got so far:

Requirements:

• Must act busy and give appearance that actual planning takes place in the city.
• Write reports about all the wonderful things that are happening because of the Mayor.
• Manage handful of bureaucrats.
• Accept that planning is not a requirement for subsidies or the threat of eminent domain.
• Report directly to Mayor’s director of development, ask her permission to speak to an alderman about planning.

Benefits:

• Really low pay.
• Get walked on by the best.
• Annual free trip to London.
• Very little actual planning involved.

The major project during Stanley’s tenure was the “Strategic Land Use Plan” that was adopted by the city in January 2005 but basically kept on a shelf since.

This new Strategic Land Use Plan is intended to improve the quality of life for those who live and work in St. Louis by encouraging appropriate types of development and preservation in clearly defined locations. Within this overall intent, this Plan has two main purposes.

• To provide direction for those who wish to make new investments in our City, and;

• To provide stability and opportunities for those who already live, work and build
their businesses here.

This plan has failed to meet both stated purposes. While seemingly providing limited direction, with statements such as, “Mixed use buildings with commercial at grade and a mix of uses on upper floors are an ideal type within these areas.” However, the land use plan has zero teeth, the zoning remains as it has been for decades which means you can talk all you want to about mixed uses and street level retail but nobody is required to do so. Meanwhile, the zoning we have pretty much mandates the opposite unless you purchase a variance from your alderman. Thus, this plan fails to meet the second purpose because it basically continues business as usual, using zoning variances as leverage. Alderman April Ford-Griffin explains:

…at the Board of Aldermen we always have the power to change zoning. So when this happens is…as you see the development boards and you see the different things that have happened, most of those had to have some type of zoning changes, street changes, name changes, just you go down the list of changes. Also, that is the only thing that makes most of the developers come and talk to us. If we did everything that it took for the development they wouldn’t have any reason to come and talk to us. Once we talk about a development, once they have shown us what they do, once they talk about minority participation, once they talk about inclusion, once they talk about jobs, and all the other things that I make sure I am committed to asking them.

When the new plan was adopted I was very encouraged. As a starting point, it was excellent. From the introduction:

Equally important, this Plan identifies areas where new directions are possible and encouraged. These directions will allow portions of the City to offer amenities and lifestyles that are now found only in the suburbs. The Plan also sets the stage for City initiatives to raise development standards throughout the region with new and innovative development approaches.

This Plan, like the City itself, is not a static object. Rather, it is intended to provide a foundation and a roadmap for positive change. It is expected the Plan itself will continue to evolve as historic preservation and new development initiatives evolve. This Plan is the beginning of a more thoughtful and cohesive approach to a bright future for the City of St. Louis.

Oh man, “thoughtful and cohesive approach” to planning in St. Louis! If anyone was going to break through the 28 obstacles in the way of doing so I thought it would be Stanley. But he needed their cooperation, at that of Room 200, to go to the next levels:

Adopted by the City’s Planning Commission on January 5th, 2005, this straightforward Land Use Plan will become the basis for additional planning and development initiatives involving collaboration between elected officials, City departments, neighborhood residents and developers, to overlay more fine-grained visions of the broader framework presented by this Plan. These future initiatives are expected to include public improvement plans, detailed neighborhood level plans, and tailored rezonings.

So here we are just a month shy of two three years later. We are left with an unfinished vision of new planning and Rollin has ducked out the back door. Really, who can blame him. Talented guy wants to bring St. Louis out of the 1940s but our parochial systme didn’t allow it. This mindset has driven out numerous other people, what is one more?

More than likely, his new suburban county gig will prove to be more urban than here in St. Louis. However, he has been an outspoken critic of greenfield projects, including New Urbanist projects such as New Town at St. Charles. Not sure how that will all play out in Montgomery Co Maryland. Actually Montgomery County is not rolling farm fields, it is a wealthy county just outside of DC proper and is served by their red Metro transit line. But, back to St. Louis.
All I can say it good luck to the next planner, you’ve got your work cut out for you. The city needs help to recover from planning disasters from the last half century or so yet the establishment seems continent with their current power structure that prevents that from happening. In pockets, we have some great places. The trick now will be to expand and connect these together in a positive manner.